The International Street Cannibals Present
“STRIKE!”, A Boxing and Chamber Music Concert Event,
at the legendary Gleason’s Gym (Dumbo, Brooklyn), Saturday, March 16, 2013

New York, NY – The International Street Cannibals (ISC), hailed by The New York Times as a “brash new-music ensemble,” join forces with young boxers from the legendary Gleason’s Gym for STRIKE! will take place on Saturday, March 16 at 8 p.m., at the historic Gleason’s Gym – training home of 132 world champions, among them Mohammed Ali, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, and Roberto Duran – located at 77 Front Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Tickets are $20 ($15 for Gleason’s Gym members and students) and are available by calling 718-797-2872.

Part of an ongoing series, STRIKE! brings together boxing, dance and chamber music, allowing each discipline to combine in surprising partnerships while engendering new artistic forms. New music compositions from some of today’s most dexterous composers as well as modern masters will be heard in the unfamiliar, yet highly disciplined environment of the boxing ring. Short 10 to 12-minute sets of 3-minute chamber music works will alternate with 9-minute boxing bouts of 3 2-minute rounds.

The music program will include:

* A Dixieland version of the well-beloved German folk tune, “Die Gedanken sind Frei,” which introduces and closes the concert with its call for freedom of thought.

* Dan “Wotan” Barrett’s impressionistic villanelle, "Philomela”(premiere); his “Technical Knock Out” (Premiere) (French horn, bass trombone, violin, electric guitar, percussion); as well as his schizoid “March of the Balonie Sandwiches” (bass trombone, violin, viola, and military snare drum), which exploits various species and layers of Canon.

* Paul Hindemith’s “Marsch,” “Lied,” and “Musikstück” from Wir Bauern Eine Stadt (We’re Building a City), a children’s song cycle about an imaginary and metaphoric city built and ruled by children alone.

This event will serve as a fundraiser for the Gleason’s Gym’s “Give a Kid a Dream” program. For the past sixteen years, the program has provided children from disadvantage backgrounds a place to come and develop themselves both physically and mentally through the sport of boxing. It is currently supported by Gleason’s itself and the efforts of individual personal trainers, who volunteer their time or substantially discount their rates in order to help the children.

About Gleason’s Gym:

The oldest active boxing gym in the United States, Gleason’s Gym has produced 132 World Champions, 2 Olympic Gold Medalists and hundreds of Amateur champions. It was founded in 1937 by Peter Gagliardi, a former bantamweight who changed his name to Bobby Gleason to appeal to the predominantly Irish New York fight crowd of the era. Located in the South Bronx, it thrived during the boxing’s “Golden Age” of the 40’s and 50’s. In 1974, it moved to 30th street, the first level gym in New York, and in 1981 it was sold to New York businessman Ira Becker, a longtime friend of boxing and a staunch supporter of boxing safety and uniform rule regulations. When the building went co-op in 1984, Gleason’s found its new and present home in Dumbo, Brooklyn. It is currently owned by Bruce Silverglade, who became business partner with Ira Becker in 1983. Fighters who trained at the gym include Muhammad Ali, Jack LaMotta, Roberto Duran, Benny “kid” Paret, Gerry Cooney, and Mike Tyson, among many others. Over the years, the reputation of the champion boxers Gleason’s produced earned the gym world-renowned appeal as the pinnacle of excellence in boxing.